Fun arcade racer with some flaws that hold it back from reaching greatness.
Hot Wheels as a franchise has had a rather mediocre history of games often missing what I feel is the biggest appeal of the IP over other racing games: racing as a toy car in a normal sized environment. Hot Wheels: Unleashed hits that mark in some ways but misses it in others unfortunately..
Unleashed has you racing on orange and blue tracks (much like the toys) across 5 maps. The issue with this is that for about 90% of the races, the maps serve more as a backdrop than part of the race itself and leads to races feeling samey and unmemorable. There's a handful of hazards as well such as wooden barriers, spider webs, and border-less tracks that must be managed. You encounter more of these as you play but they mostly boil down to being different flavors of puddles that must be avoided if you wish to not be slowed to halt. These detailed maps would have served far better had the various races taking place on them actually incorporated them into the course itself more than the odd rarity. The basement is probably the best map as it is full customization using unlocks you've earned playing the game.
Music and sound design is excellent. I believe the track music is original while the menu music utilizes royalty free music. Either way, the music is fitting. The menu music is bass-heavy funk that serves as an excellent backdrop for looking through your collection of cars. On the other hand races are accompanied by upbeat electronic music that sets the ideal tone for high speeds, jumps, and drifting. There seems to be a variety of sounds between different vehicles that makes racing between them feel slightly different as well.
Graphically, Unleashed's cartoony aesthetic works well for its IP. The cars themselves are lovingly recreated with finer details you would expect on toy cars such as little scrapes and dents included. There's a fair amount of graphical settings present including up scaling options though the game runs very smooth natively as well. Whether intentional or not, I did find the glare of the sun in some of the tracks to be more of an annoying hindrance than a visual spectacle.
The game has a "story" mode which is really just a means to serve the player the races in a slightly more interesting way than simple list. There are 5 bosses within the mode each with a unique track and hazard such as poison spit that drains your boost gauge. Non-boss races will either be a standard race against AI opponents or a time trial. I found the AI difficulty options to scale very poorly with easy being too easy and medium being a drastic step up from it. I'm not a fan of some of the time trials essentially requiring clever shortcuts to complete either.
There's a multiplayer component as well as track builder. Community made tracks are were the game shines, but unfortunately you are not able to race on these maps against AI opponents which feels like a big missed opportunity given that the multiplayer is nearly dead at the time of writing this. The last thing I want to bring up is the ridiculous amount of DLC this game pumped out. While you can get most of the DLC content for cheap during a sale, MSRP for ALL of these is too high for what's on offer.
I had a fun time with Unleashed, but I do think that fun has a somewhat short lifespan for a racing game due to tracks lacking an identity and the choice for community tracks to be only raced on as a time trial (outside of multiplayer). Luckily most of these issues are things that can be fixed in a sequel. Regardless, I believe it is the best Hot Wheels video game to be released up to its release date. Check it out if you are looking for a fun, albeit flawed, arcade racer.
Hot Wheels as a franchise has had a rather mediocre history of games often missing what I feel is the biggest appeal of the IP over other racing games: racing as a toy car in a normal sized environment. Hot Wheels: Unleashed hits that mark in some ways but misses it in others unfortunately..
Unleashed has you racing on orange and blue tracks (much like the toys) across 5 maps. The issue with this is that for about 90% of the races, the maps serve more as a backdrop than part of the race itself and leads to races feeling samey and unmemorable. There's a handful of hazards as well such as wooden barriers, spider webs, and border-less tracks that must be managed. You encounter more of these as you play but they mostly boil down to being different flavors of puddles that must be avoided if you wish to not be slowed to halt. These detailed maps would have served far better had the various races taking place on them actually incorporated them into the course itself more than the odd rarity. The basement is probably the best map as it is full customization using unlocks you've earned playing the game.
Music and sound design is excellent. I believe the track music is original while the menu music utilizes royalty free music. Either way, the music is fitting. The menu music is bass-heavy funk that serves as an excellent backdrop for looking through your collection of cars. On the other hand races are accompanied by upbeat electronic music that sets the ideal tone for high speeds, jumps, and drifting. There seems to be a variety of sounds between different vehicles that makes racing between them feel slightly different as well.
Graphically, Unleashed's cartoony aesthetic works well for its IP. The cars themselves are lovingly recreated with finer details you would expect on toy cars such as little scrapes and dents included. There's a fair amount of graphical settings present including up scaling options though the game runs very smooth natively as well. Whether intentional or not, I did find the glare of the sun in some of the tracks to be more of an annoying hindrance than a visual spectacle.
The game has a "story" mode which is really just a means to serve the player the races in a slightly more interesting way than simple list. There are 5 bosses within the mode each with a unique track and hazard such as poison spit that drains your boost gauge. Non-boss races will either be a standard race against AI opponents or a time trial. I found the AI difficulty options to scale very poorly with easy being too easy and medium being a drastic step up from it. I'm not a fan of some of the time trials essentially requiring clever shortcuts to complete either.
There's a multiplayer component as well as track builder. Community made tracks are were the game shines, but unfortunately you are not able to race on these maps against AI opponents which feels like a big missed opportunity given that the multiplayer is nearly dead at the time of writing this. The last thing I want to bring up is the ridiculous amount of DLC this game pumped out. While you can get most of the DLC content for cheap during a sale, MSRP for ALL of these is too high for what's on offer.
I had a fun time with Unleashed, but I do think that fun has a somewhat short lifespan for a racing game due to tracks lacking an identity and the choice for community tracks to be only raced on as a time trial (outside of multiplayer). Luckily most of these issues are things that can be fixed in a sequel. Regardless, I believe it is the best Hot Wheels video game to be released up to its release date. Check it out if you are looking for a fun, albeit flawed, arcade racer.